Tamaki was born in Toronto, Ontario, and has Japanese Canadian and Jewish Canadian heritage. In 2008, she published her first graphic novel, Skim, along with her cousin Jillian Tamaki. Skim won the Ignatz Award, a Joe Shuster Award and a Doug Wright Award in 2009. In 2014, they collaborated again to publish This One Summer.
In 2020, she won the Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens for Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me and the Eisner Award for Best Writer for Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, and Archie.
In 2021, Tamaki, Dan Mora, and Jordie Bellaire became the new creative team for the DC Infinite Frontier relaunch of Detective Comics, after having done Future State: Dark Detective. Though she's fully capable of writing action, humor, and romance, most of her stories focus on exploring the characters' motivations and rationale.
Her work includes:
Comics
- Skim
- This One Summer
- Tomb Raider (2016)
- Hulk (2016)
- Supergirl: Being Super
- Supergirl Special
- X-23 (2018) (vol. 4)
- Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me
- Hunt for Wolverine: Claws of a Killer
- Spider-Man & Venom: Double Trouble
- Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow
- Overwatch: Tracer – London Calling
- I Am Not Starfire
- Crush & Lobo
- Future State: Dark Detective
- Detective Comics
- Thor & Loki: Double Trouble
- Wonder Woman (Vol. 5): #759 - 769
Literature
- Lumberjanes novels
Television
- Goosebumps (2023) - writer (2 episodes), executive story producer
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - writer (1 episode)
